ASM International Indianapolis Chapter

Joint Meeting with ASME

September 15, 2008

Topic: Protecting/Enforcing Your Mechanical and Metallurgical Inventions in a Changing Patent Landscape

Speaker: Chuck Reeves

Location: Holiday Inn Select
3850 DEPAUW BLVD, Indianapolis, IN 46268

(chick here to visit MapQuest.com for a map.

Social 5:00
Dinner 6:00
Presentation 6:45

Reservations

Protecting/Enforcing Your Mechanical and Metallurgical Inventions in a Changing Patent Landscape

Intellectual property in general and patents in particular are fundamental to the goal of business to achieve success whether that is measured by profits, market share or whatever test may be applied. In that regard, intellectual property provides tools for business to develop, secure and maintain competitive advantages in ever-changing market conditions. Technological advances are, of course, also fundamental to both a businesses’ intellectual property assets and its resulting success; and mechanical and materials and metallurgical technologies and inventions are center most in this picture. Just as those technologies change and advance, legal standards for their identification, protection and enforcement both in the U.S. and in other countries change as well. For over 30+ years of practice, those legal changes most often and most preferably have been gradual as with a pendulum swinging from periods of pro-patent or pro-industry protection and enforcement potential to periods where the opposite were true. However, some change is not subtle or slow, but rather quick and dramatic as with several U.S. Supreme Court and other appeals case decisions handed down over the past couple years. At the same time that countries such as China, Korea and others are trying desperately to bolster their intellectual property protections for inventions to lure outside industry and investment into their growing economies, the U.S. courts and Patent Office seem committed to re-trenching on available protections and making it more difficult, uncertain and costly for business and individual applicants to obtain patent protection under the U.S. system and to have any assurety of its validity and enforcement potential in our courts. Above all else, this changing patent landscape provides challenges to industry and patent practitioners alike as these case decisions and Patent Office rules and other changes challenge all of us to adapt on what seems almost a daily basis to all that is occurring around us.

With that introduction as background, my talk will include something of a primer on intellectual property law in general and patent law in particular with regard to the mechanical, metallurgical and other arts. Interweaved with this primer will be reference to these new U.S. Supreme Court and other case law decisions which are re-shaping the map of available patent law protections in this Country. I will also highlight major rule changes and practices at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in force and proposed, and also their practical impact on individual inventors and businesses who continually strive for new inventions to help maintain or increase market share as well as product and service demand and sales in the marketplace. I will also comment on certain international shifts and changes or trends that are under way as well, and be open for questions anywhere from practical how-to matters to more fundamental or conceptual thoughts as to where the U.S. and other patent systems are headed in the future.

Charles R. (Chuck) Reeves was born and grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He attended Purdue University and received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Metallurgical Engineering, cum laude, in 1973 with strong emphasis on both chemical and physical material science and metallurgy courses. While at Purdue, he assisted professors in the Metallurgical Engineering Department in industry-sponsored research at facilities including Republic Steel and co-oped during school and after graduation with Indiana Rod & Wire, Inc., as a division of Phelps Dodge Copper Products Corporation also in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He then attended the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis where he received a Juris Doctorate Degree, summa cum laude, in 1977. Mr. Reeves served as Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Paul H. Buchannan, Jr., Judge on the Indiana Court of Appeals from 1975 through 1976, whereupon he joined the firm presently known as Woodard, Emhardt, Moriarty, McNett & Henry LLP and has long been a partner and built up a highly successful practice and expertise in intellectual property law including patent, trademark and unfair competition, copyright, trade secret and related areas of law providing full-service representation in matters of protection, commercialization and enforcement. Mr. Reeves is a skilled attorney with extensive experience in prosecution before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, in licensing and other business transactions, and in litigation particularly in the federal courts. He has excellent writing skills and proven abilities to analyze and problem-solve complex fact and legal situations and to organize and manage significant case loads in many disciplines, especially in the areas of material science and metallurgy. He is a long-time member of the Indianapolis, Indiana and American Bar Associations, is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of Indiana, and various other federal courts. He is the author/editor of the Chapter on Indiana Law for the Treatise entitled “State Trademark and Unfair Competition Law” published by the International Trademark Association, has been an adjunct professor at the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington and a frequent lecturer for clients, business and other groups as well as in continuing legal education programs, was a member of the Advanced Materials Committee of the Indiana Corporation of Science and Technology (CST) throughout its existence, has been an expert and fact witness in several litigation matters, and has regularly been selected by his peers to the Super Lawyers listing for Indiana concentrating in intellectual property law.

Reservations:

To make Reservations for the regular Monday meetings:
Contact Fred Baldwin (317)242-2603
E-mail fred.baldwin@allisontransmission.com Prices:        With Reservation: $20.00 (+$5.00 bar use fee)
       Without Reservation: $22.00
       Student: $10.00

Reservation Deadline: Noon, Thursday September 10, 2008